Two Audits Detail IRS’s Failure to Properly Account for Taxpayer Funds Used in Implementing Democrats’ Health Care Law

Washington, DC – Ways and Means Republicans today demanded the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) provide a full accounting for the cost of implementing and administering the Democrats’ health care law. Two recent reports from independent government agencies raised questions about the IRS’s ability to account for the taxpayer dollars used to implement the Democrats’ health care law.

In the letter, the Members stated: “The Agency’s repeated lack of transparency to Congress and its failure to provide accountability to American taxpayers raises fundamental concerns about implementation authorities vested to the IRS.

“Given the central role the IRS will play in collecting the law’s over one-half trillion dollars in new taxes and the responsibility the agency will have for much of the $1.8 trillion cost of the law, the Service must account for the cost of administering the Democrats’ health care law.”

The report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that the IRS did not have adequate processes in place to accurately review and account for the taxpayer dollars the IRS is spending to implement the controversial law. A second audit by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) found the IRS is ill-equipped to implement the law which TIGTA described as “the largest set of tax law changes in more than 20 years.” The IRS has estimated that it will need to dedicate nearly 1,300 full-time employees to the effort by September 30 of this year and another 895 by the end of fiscal year 2013. However, according to the GAO and TIGTA, these eye-popping numbers are understated. A report from the Ways and Means Committee found that the IRS may ultimately need to hire as many as 16,500 additional auditors, agents and other employees to investigate and collect billions in new taxes from Americans.